Were agreed upon.
The RFQ and the draft agreement are two different documents.
They do not coincide.
In fact, there are contradictions between both.
There are requirements listed in the RFQ that do not appear in the draft agreement and vice versa.
It is essential that the agreement you approve truly reflects what is intended and what is best for Alberta's airport's future, not just what you were told in a memo.
Thank you for listening.
Ashley Howman?
Ashley Howman, I'm here tonight to speak on item number nine.
I'm here tonight on behalf of one of my owners and myself.
I would first like to note that neither myself nor my owner was notified of a possible change to an ordinance in regarding the short-term rental and noting that I am the registered agent for the rental registry.
Please note that you would have had to go to the Planning Commission agenda to know that there was a public hearing to discuss the changes being presented to you this evening.
With that said, when it comes to short-term rentals, often called vacation rentals, everyone seems to become a real estate expert, quick to say that they destabilize neighborhoods or create problems.
In reality, vacation rentals also serve important purposes.
Corporations need them to use to just house their employees.
Families use them to test neighborhoods before buying.
Individuals who are displaced from their home Due to certain circumstances, traveling employment, such as the traveling nurses that work for FHN.
These homes are typically well-maintained because owners depend on good reviews and constant bookings.
I am in the real estate business and I have firsthand acknowledged of vacation rentals, complimenting housing markets rather than harming them.
I personally own several and have stayed at numerous short-term rentals.
They provide flexibility for property owners, support local tourism and offer families and employees more housing choices throughout a city.
Many of the issues often raised with these rentals, noise, property maintenance, nuisance activities are already addressed by city ordinance.
The city has tools to address problems with these properties without stripping the rights of responsible owners.
Instead of the current proposed changes and rezoning to only allow in certain districts and removing those rights, the city could cap the number of vacation rentals for short-term rentals no matter the zoning.
The village of Cherry Valley with only 2,300 people has a short-term rental ordinance with no zoning restrictions with many successes.
Many of these areas have asked for support and guidance in the ordinance.
Freeport has some opportunity to balance regulation that works for everyone.
To strengthen the ordinance further, the city could add guardrails, tie guest limits to the bedroom counter square footage, require a local property manager if the owner is not nearby, Johnson, John Staben, 1070 North Canyon Drive.
I'm here to speak on item 16, the airport manager agreement.
Thank you for this time.
I was the fifth person interested in the airport manager position.
I have fought for Alberta's airport for years.
When I found out Ms. Jensen was going to be removed, I thought I might be able to help.
I looked for a notice that an RFP for the airport position was available.
I found none.
On April 30th, I went to the City Hall and requested the RFP request for a proposal.
I received the RFQ request for quotation on August 13th and was required to respond by September 1st, 18 days, to create an LLC, get the bonds and other requirements.
Only possible if you had prior knowledge this was happening.
I responded to Mr. Boyer declaring that the RFQ was not biddable, which you all know last Johnson.
Last year in this chamber, it became known that arrangements were underway to fill this position with a friend of the city.
They just needed to wait until Mrs. Johnson's contract expired.
The draft contract to tonight's agenda was presented as presented on the web, is nothing like the contract Mr. Boyer will sign.
Please read the final contract before you approve this.
East, remember, this is a one year contract with 19 automatic renewals.
This runs 20 years.
I must compliment Mr. Boyer, this hurts.
He has bragged for a year privately he was going to throw Angie Johnson off the airport.
He has done just that.
It wasn't pretty, it wasn't moral, and it certainly wasn't legal.
In the next two years, the cost of operations at Albertus Airport will go up considerably due to lost hangar rent.
I think the taxpayers should know this.
Thank you.
Cheryl Altman.
My name is Cheryl Altman.
I'm going to start with number 13 first for the solar savings program.
I'd like to know, are the taxpayers the one that are paying for all these solar panels going up?
And also, who's getting all the incentives from all these solar's going up?
My next one is number five.
They're renting to Pete Elber for $2,000.
That's $166.66 a month.
You tell me where anybody in this town can go rent a space for $166.66 a month.
Only if you're friends and family with the mayor.
Madam Clerk, could you please note for the record that Alderman Simmons joined at 622?
622.
Correct.
Thank you.
So we'll move on to item number four, which is the consent agenda.
The consent agenda is considered to be routine in nature, unless there's a member of the council who would like to have something removed for further discussion.
The consent agenda consists of approving to receive and place on file business, I'm sorry, Building permit reports, police department reports, and fire department reports all dated August 2025.
The proclamation for National Sea Treks thinks train week, September 15th through the 21st.
Approval for the 2026 holiday schedule, City Council schedule, and the Committee of the Whole schedule.
Approval for the finance bills payable in total of $3,900,279.24 and and Payroll ending September 6th, 2025 in the total of $668,777.79.
Is there a motion to approve?
So moved.
Second.
We have a motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Johnson.
Madam Clerk, please take the roll.
Sanders?
Here.
On the consent agenda, do you approve?
No.
Klemm?
Aye.
Johnson?
Simmons, Parker, Stacy, and Shadle.
The motion passes 6 to 2.5 to 2.
Thank you.
Okay, item number 5 is the second reading of ordinance 2025-53.
Could you please read this?
Ordinance authorizing the city to enter into a fifth renewal to lease agreement with Pete Albert for 103 to 111 South Liberty Avenue.
Thank Thank you.
Manager Boyer?
Thank your honor.
Pete Elber currently leases the first floor of the Raleigh Metal clad building.
There are several floors in the building that are also available for rent.
If anyone's interested, they're welcome to come to the city and solicit their interest in that.
As for right now, Mr. Elber is leasing it for $2,000 annually.
And this is the fifth renewal staff request moving forward with This Fifth Lease Renewal.
Discussion?
Discussion, Alderman Stacey.
To my understanding, city manager Boyer, forgive me.
You speak about other floors being able to be rented.
However, how would one know that when it's not put out there?
You spoke about $2,000 a year.
A year.
It's a steal.
But what you didn't speak about is how the taxes that's paid on that building is paid by the city because it's in the city's name.
And so it's maybe a little over a hundred dollars for the whole year.
But that's not accurate, Alderman Stacy.
It's the, as it was discussed in the last meeting there the city is reimbursed for it yes the city is reimbursed but why get those French benefits why is in the city's name why isn't because because he's renting that floor why isn't the rental agreement drawn up and the taxes on him and not weeping the benefit of the city because We're the tech we are we own it.
It's no different than manager.
Where I just wanted to add There's a change to this lease.
It'll allow us to work out a sale price for the building between now and the next time this renews.
So it would actually It would actually do exactly what you're asking for.
So if he was able to purchase the building from the city, which I believe the city is willing to liquidate at some point here soon, that would put the tax burden on.
At what cost?
We're not hearing what are you wanting to sell?
We're not quite there yet and we have to renew the lease right now because we have a lease expiring but in this version we've made it available so we could open it up and sell the building if that meets council's approval.
What I don't want is that it be sold for a dollar.
I understood.
I understand.
So there's no Do you have any further discussion, Alderman Sanders?
Yeah.
This ordinance that we're looking at is considered an authorized ordinance by the city of Freeport, the city.
Who's authorizing this, and is it a real ordinance?
Is it, because I see here, I see it's doctored up here, an Ordinance 2025-53.
Is that a legit ordinance authorization from the city?
And that means from the council.
That means the council has to authorize that lease before you, Mr. Boyer, even consider, and it needs a revision.
That ordinance and the leasing needs a revision for council to go back to justify whether or not the price or the annual cost of the leasing meets the value of all of the other city properties.
And the thing about it is where is this ordinance at and where is it coming from and who's creating it?
And how is it being bypassed by the authorities of the city?
And we've got to remember it's the council that is the authority of this particular ordinance, not the city manager.
And you can't call the shots on this particular leasing.
A lot of questions there, do you mind if I answer a few of them?
Okay, so where did it come from?
We've had, we've been renting that building to Pete Elber since 2021.
Then the rent at that time was a thousand.
Then in 2022, the rent was increased to 2000.
Who was authorizing?
The city council.
City council?
Yes.
Okay.
So in the city council is authorized it four previous times.
Fowler.
Yes, and we talked about it last meeting, and we discussed this, and so.
Let's review rules of Robert's Rules.
When someone has the floor, please allow them to speak.
This back and forth doesn't happen.
If you have specific questions, that's a phone call.
Uh-uh.
Attorney Zeta, would you like to address that question?
You can't implement a Robert's Rule nor a home rule.
I am the chair of this.
You need to just back yourself up away from the microphone before you're called out of order.
Please stop talking.
I'm going according to the rules.
Please stop talking.
You don't want to run.
Attorney Zeta, would you like to answer any of that?
You don't want to implement it.
Robert rules.
So to address some of your questions, in addition to what manager Boyer said, the ordinance, this ordinance is before you tonight, so that the council can vote on it.
This is not a done deal.
It's here tonight for you guys.
The reason why we're talking about it is so that the council can vote on whether or not Settling on this agenda.
You have a draft of an ordinance for you guys for you to approve or not approve.
Has this been drafted?
Has this ordinance been drafted?
Yes, it's in the packet.
Okay.
It's a draft ordinance to be considered by the council tonight.
If you guys vote to approve it, then it will become a approved ordinance.
If you vote not to approve it, then it goes away.
Okay.
Madam Clerk, please take the roll.
Klemm, Johnson, Simmons, Parker, Stacy, Shadle, I have five to two.
For the lease of property an ordinance has to pass by three fourths vote of the corporate authority so three fourths of nine so because the corporate authorities are the council plus the mayor you would need a vote of seven in order to pass so this would not pass.
Thank you attorney.
We'll move on to item number six which is the second reading of ordinance 2025-57.
Could you please read this?
Am I in the wrong place?
I'm on 54.
Okay you skipped ahead a little.
54.
Ordinance establishing the Gladewood special service area and accepting dedication of roadways and levy of taxes to offset the cost of Thank you, Your Honor.
So the city received a petition from a majority of property owners in the Gladewood subdivision requesting the creation of a special service area following required notices and a public meeting held on May 28th.
No valid objections were filed.
The ordinance establishes the special service area, dedicates the subdivision roadway to The SSA ensures improvements to the subdivision's upper and lower entrances, including roadway base and asphalt upgrades meeting engineering standards.
The City will also create a sustainable mechanism for funding services to the benefit area without burdening existing taxpayers with the full cost of the needed improvements.
The ordinance provides for an annual levy of $400 per taxable parcel across 16 parcels.
The revenues will offset costs of roadway maintenance and improvements specific to Gladewood ensuring equitable cost recovery.
Staff recommends moving forward with the ordinance establishing the Gladewood SSA or special service area.
And then, Manager Boyer, there's also the lined copy.
Do you want to speak to that?
We have a few comments.
This would go for approximately 15 years.
I know that was a or it will go for 15 years.
That was a question that came up before and also identifies the lot numbers and parcel IDs.
So what you have counsel would be motion to add that amendments to clarify, correct, to clarify that there's 15 years put into the agreement.
Right, so from the version that was previously presented to and Mary.
The 15-year ordinance was also in effect for the SSA.
They had agreed that this could be made filming the last council meeting, and when they asked the last council, there was inadvertently left out of the ordinance, the timeframe for which the SSA would be effective, which is 15 years.
The petitioners actually, when they petitioned for the SSA also agreed that it would be 15 years.
So it was just inadvertently, a reference was left out of the ordnance there.
So what you have that was on your desk in the red line, the underlying language is the and I will clarify the fact that it's a 15 year assessment of this SSA tax.
A motion and a second to add this underlying language in would be made, seconded.
If that's approved, then you guys will move the second reading final vote on the ordinance as amended.
So is there.
So, is there a motion to add the 15 years into the document?
So moved.
Second.
A motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Klemm, discussion on the 15-year amended portion.
Alderman Stacey?
What do we do after the 15 years?
Then it goes away.
That assessment goes away.
Alderman Sanders?
To, well, I wanted to call it the special, the special maintenance upkeep and everything.
Is it because the city is gonna take on the responsibilities of this particular site area?
Yes.
Mr. Boyer?
Just to kind of hit some of the highlights.
It was plotted that the road was a private street back in 19, I believe 63.
No one really knew that until we did some investigation as to the relation, it related to Gladewood Bridge and who was responsible there.
Because it came to our attention, then we notified the residents of the area, affected area, that it was unclear as to who was the ownership.
I think there were some arguments one way or the other as far as why it wasn't, why the city wasn't responsible today, but it was doing work in the past.
This is essentially our negotiated settlement with the property owners in the area so that they're participating in the cost of the road that was never built to city specification and we're offsetting the cost to fix it so that it's not completely borne by the taxpayers.
Did that answer your question?
Is that the taxpayers of that particular area?
Yeah, well, in Gladewood, the lots that are mentioned in the ordinance, each one of them will be assessed $400 per year for 15 years.
So there's approximately 16 landowners.
Oh, okay.
All right.
Any other discussion on the amendment?
Madam Clerk, could you please take the role on the amendment of adding the language of 15 years to the document?
Sanders?
Yes.
Klemm?
Aye.
Johnson?
Aye.
Simmons?
Aye.
Parker?
Aye.
Stacy?
Aye.
And Shadle?
Aye.
The motion passes seven to zero.
Huffines.
So I guess my only problem with this is we add them and then they jumped the line.
Like we start on Gladewood when we've had roads that have been part of the city infrastructure and have been waiting to get done.
And then this area gets to go first because we added them and haven't done it.
It's a yes asterisk okay right now the entrance and exit of the area is in really poor degraded shape so in the sense that yes we're gonna fix approximately 400 feet of that road so that the entry and exit is passable but the rest of Gladewood will have to wait in the normal road program when council brings it to staff's attention that need to move forward so it doesn't this is I guess my problem with that is most of our roadways the entry and exit areas need to be redone so that's that's my only thing with that like that's fine but in time in your turn like we should just I don't see the Faraday and that letting them we do it right away just because.
Well in in to answer that these residents are paying an additional $400 a month for I'm sorry $400 a year for 15 years so that we would be able to have the cost offset to make repairs to that area so there is a given a take there.
Yeah is that a Are there a collective annual $400 a year for the collective area or individual?
Individuals.
Individuals, okay good, alright.
Hold on, Ms. Stacey.
Every home in this Glenwood area will be paying $400 every year.
For 15 years.
Yes.
And they're in agreement with this?
Yes, that's what took so long to make.
The majority?
Yes, there's going to be people who may not agree, but we have gone through the process, followed the legal procedures, and we are able to move forward with a special assessment based upon the participants.
Yes.
Madam Clerk, please take the roll.
This is on final passage with the amendment.
Sanders?
Yes.
Klemm?
Aye.
Johnson?
Aye.
Simmons?
Parker?
Aye.
Stacy?
Aye.
And Shadle?
Aye.
And the ordinance passes seven to zero.
Item number seven is the second reading of Ordinance 2025-56.
Could you please read this?
Ordinance amending chapters 1248 and 1250 of the Zoning Code of the City of Freeport concerning ground mounted solar arrays.
Thank you, Director Duckman.
Thank you madam mayor so the last time this was up we're at second reading right now and at the first reading it was discussed a little more might maybe wanted a little more detail about the voting and what was discussed so as stated in the first the first reading it the vote was five to zero to zero and at our planning Commission and the people that were present were Ryan Walton Matt Moyer, Andrea Schultz-Winner, Dr. George Walker, and Dustin Wilkinson.
So specifically, that's who was present.
I know Director Steekle had also mentioned, had talked about this matter, but he was not present.
Bill Green also wasn't present.
So just giving a little background here.
Due to the fact that Mr. Steekle and Mr. Green We're not present they were you know as we stated earlier two members who were had strong opinions on this matter they were not actually at the meeting truly there was discussion but it wasn't I wouldn't call it lengthy and you know with all that being said this matter was discussed at the Planning Commission meeting and staff is recommending moving the recommending moving this ordinance Ford.
Discussion?
Madam Clerk, please take the role.
Alderman Sanders.
Last meeting, were you making reference to not moving it forward?
No.
The first reading I recommended and it was voted to move it Ford for second reading.
Oh, it was?
Yes.
OK, my thing is, OK, with that, who does all of the infrastructure or the construction of this solar mounting, and who benefits from it?
Well, I mean, I would have to agree.
That really doesn't have anything to do with this ordinance of who does what.
We have a question on the ordinance about it can go in that direction.
There is not.
I think another way.
I think what Mayor Miller is saying is that this ordinance has to do with somebody being allowed to put or install a solar panel in their backyard.
Miller.
Yeah, I know that before I was rudely interrupted, I understand that.
But my thing, it says concerning, there's a concern there when I'm reading this about the mounting, the ground mounting, is the City of Freeport, or the residents should be concerned about the mounting of this particular product, or what are we talking about?
Well I think the idea here is that there was quite a bit I would say in what was discussed in the first reading is that it tends to be a contentious topic when we're in residential neighborhoods it tends to be people coming to the hearings more than most and there's a negative opinion in residential neighborhoods generally that ground mounted solar doesn't fit with the character of the neighborhood and so sorry go ahead and you give me the characteristics of this ordinance and kind of defined it for me so I can understand exactly how did this ordinance I don't understand exactly how did this ordinance came to be, came into existence.
Director Stiegel, would you like to address that?
I sat on the Planning Commission and it was the direction of the Commission members that they are not interested in having ground-mounted solar.
Currently our ordinance provides, if you wish to have roof-mounted solar, that's fully acceptable and you don't need city approval to do that in order to put it on the ground which most O'Neill.
Currently how many ground mount solar do we have?
So I did a little bit of research on that.
We had, and this is in the past two years, we've had an uptick in the amount of the solar projects.
And the reason that there's an uptick is there's many of the private sector is truly beggしゃ the installation of solar due to the fact that there's incentives to construct solar.
So essentially, salespeople are, I'm sure everyone in this room has had a salesperson trying to sell them solar.
So in the past year, we've had Park Hills, which is owning a port of appeals, they recommended approval four to zero.
Planning commission at that point recommended five to one.
It passed.
One it passed city council.
Park Hills has had quite a few people complain after the fact.
They don't like the way it looks.
And I think in moving on from there, we had 1405 South Benson, which was a large residential lot, the Zoning Board of Appeals recommended approval five to zero planning commission voted five to zero.
That ended up passing our city council.
One and John.
The attitudes of our people have said, our Planning Commission was listening and was saying, okay, we remember what happened at Park Hills Church.
We know that our community isn't happy about ground-mounted solar residential neighborhoods and you're starting to see it in the evidence because 1161 West Lincoln, Planning Commission voted against it.
It failed City Council.
Then you look at Harmony Church, that was a highly contested ground-mounted solar project.
That went through the zoning board of appeals five to zero, planning commission was zero to six to one.
So at this point you're starting to see our planning commission is digging in its heels, not really seeing the connection to our community with ground mounted solar.
Ultimately that did pass council, although it took several hearings before it was heard.
So the point here is that to your point, to your point, our planning commission noticed that it's not really been, it was not well received in our community and they directed staff to draft an ordinance that would eliminate it zoning wise in residential neighborhoods.
Director Duckman.
Yes.
I think giving all that information about how the zoning department feel is being said to sway the vote.
My original question was in the past two years, how many have we approved?
We've approved three out of four.
We have approved three out of the four.
We're not approving any ground monitor tonight.
We're trying to remove it.
I understand, but it goes back, Madam Mayor, it goes back to us allowing some and now not others.
And how do you say yes to one and no to someone else?
I guess you just say it, but- and Aaron.
So this goes back to realistically the error of City Manager Crowe who decided at that time with the council that we were a solar friendly city and we were experimenting with solar and trying to you know a lot of communities were looking at the facts of what solar was and wasn't and so as with any new process you learn things over time what works and and what doesn't work.
And we did allow a handful of these projects to move forward.
And we've gotten feedback from community members more than like them.
We've had more feedback that people don't like them.
The biggest example is the one that's at Park Hills Church.
There's, I don't wanna say there's been issues with it throughout, but maintenance has been a problem.
Fencing has been a problem.
It's obtrusive to the neighbors.
Those are something that nobody could see happening until it started to happen.
And we're also talking the difference between residential zoning and commercial zoning.
So this application here is for residential home zoning.
So it'd be if your next door neighbor came to the council and said, I wanna fill my backyard full of an array and you can see it from your house while it's their property.
Is there property?
Well, I'm glad you feel that way but a lot of other people don't because it becomes their problem.
And Wayne's exactly right.
In dealing with a lot of solar companies over the last year, many of the solar companies are pushing the ground mount because it's cheaper for them to install than the roof mount and it's less work for them long term, even though it hides it better from the community.
So while I do sit on the planning commission and I agree totally with their recommendation to get rid of this.
This wasn't pushed by me.
This was a completely unanimous vote by the Planning Commission and we directed council, which is Mr. Cox that sits on that committee to draft this ordinance.
So we don't have to keep having these hearings and discussions about ground mount solar because we don't think that it fits the residential platform.
We're not talking about panels that are two by two.
We're talking about panels that are 10 by eight.
It's a big difference.
Yeah, it is.
And so the panels they get primarily mounted on rooftops now are about a two by two square and bundles that they put on based on your usage.
The ones that they put in the backyards are actually a trapeze of steel that they get put on and most of the panels are eight to 10 foot tall and probably four foot wide and the average house probably needs four to six of them to gain power.
So we're talking about a mini RV of solar panels sitting in the backyard that everybody's got to steer at in their community.
But that's not what Harmony asked for.
That's not what.
That is exactly what Harmony asked for.
That large.
Yes ma'am.
And it was in the back.
It was by their garage near the trees of their property but that is exactly what they asked for and that's what this council approved.
Yes, cause what was the danger of it other than we might see it driving down, what's the road?
Pearl city road.
Yes.
The danger of it in my opinion is exactly what we're talking about here.
That church is in a residentially zoned area that opens up to more residentially zoned people adding this and so what the planning commission is recommending and I'm not speaking for everyone but I think based on the vote I can, we're recommending that this is not a path that Freeport should move forward, that it will not long-term benefit residential properties and it'll become an eyesore like an old car sitting in a yard over time.
That's what these- Well, we get plenty of that.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
So that's just the recommendation.
What the council does with it is there will.
There's no further discussion.
Madam Clerk, please take the roll.
Sanders?
No.
Klemm?
Aye.
Johnson?
Aye.
Simmons?
Aye.
Parker?
Aye.
Stacy?
No.
And Shadle?
Aye.
The motion passes 5 to 2.
Item number 8 is.
Item number 8 is the first reading of Ordinance 2025-57.
Could you please read this?
Ordinance revising codified ordinances to create the position of Operations Superintendent.
Thank you, Manager Boyer.
Thank you, Your Honor.
The Freeport Public Works team is requesting that Council create a job description for the department in a restructuring effort.
At this time, we are requesting the creation of a new position, Public Works Operations Superintendent.
This is not an additional position to the department, but a promotional opportunity for a department leader to assume more management duties and responsibilities within the combined department leadership team.
Due to a key employee leaving the city public works team, the department is looking to restructure important key roles and responsibilities, allowing better collaboration and uniting the overall team.
Creating an operations superintendent role will enable the department leader to effectively manage the daily activities of the construction crew and be involved in the utility operations division.
This change will facilitate more departmental collaboration.
Strategic plan alignment aligned with teamwork integration and departments are especially important because they direct impact the efficiency, consistency and overall performance of the division.
This position changes an important first step in evaluating overall non-bargaining job duties to ensure a unified approach to the departments.
This new job description is budgeted for through the public works budget and should not increase the overall payroll of the department.
Staff recommends moving forward with this and there's a request due to the timeliness of this there is a request for suspension of the rules.
Is there a motion to move this forward?
So moved.
Second.
A motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Klemm.
Discussion on this Alderman Stacey?
Alderman Stacey?
Does this have something to do with an open position in Public Works?
It does have something to do with an open position in Public Works in the Water Utility.
So recently the utility operation or the utility superintendent has moved on and we felt that this was a good opportunity to consolidate the the department's overall and that's why staff is asking for a new person to oversee the Public Works Department.
Is that a salary-based position?
Yes sir and we're going to replace we're going to replace it as a salary or we're going to incorporate it within the city structure so we'll incorporate it it would basically mean the street superintendent position would remain it would it would no longer be filled and the utility superintendent wouldn't be filled and then we would fill it with a operation superintendent whose overall responsibility covered both and then we would we'll be bringing back an Assistant for that individual to help cover weekends and times that they're unable to be there and also have a little bit more background in the operations and regulatory end of the water utility.
Okay, the assistance is not going to be.
Would you like your second time of speaking, Robert Sanders?
I thought I was in a conversation.
Yeah, I just want to give a point of clarity to Rob's statement there so this is creating a job position that we currently don't have in the structure that's what it's doing it's not adding a role it's giving it's giving a new role to an old position that we currently don't have so this will allow us to change the job description of an individual and allow him to manage more areas than currently is aligned in his job duties his or her job Doudouis.
So this provides us opportunity to somewhat restructure and reorganize the department, which we started again many years under City Manager Crowe.
And then we've been doing this little at a time as jobs have turned over.
So we're not adding, asking for an additional position.
We're asking for merging a few positions together at this time to have one person oversee more areas.
And we don't currently have this role.
And that's why we're asking approval to create this role.
Alderman Johnson.
So would this be filled by someone inside already here, or would this be something we would We believe we have a qualified internal candidate for this position.
Would this position also be covering the position where the gentleman resigned from?
That's correct.
And so it's like in a roundabout way, I hear what you're saying and I hear what you're saying but it's like we're ignoring the fact that a person you put in position has left the department and so that is an opening position or you're telling me it's not going to be We are opening position because we're going to add those duties to someone else's duty.
So if we could have done that from the beginning, why did we ever hire this gentleman?
Because that's who you chose, that's who you wanted, and we hired him.
Well, you'll have to ask that individual.
However, we're asking for counsel.
I'm not going to speculate on the motivations or the needs of that individual.
I mean, why did we need that position then if we don't need it now?
Well, as I mentioned, it'll be the superintendent will oversee all of public works and will be asking for an assistant to also come alongside to cover weekends.
And the superintendent did not do that before?
Correct, they did, but it was not a clearly defined role.
Droll.
And the way it's being explained tonight is not clearly defined.
Well, the job description is provided, so I could give that to you if you'd like.
No, I have it.
Okay, there's no further discussion.
We'll move on.
Oh, actually, it was a request for suspension of the rules if someone wants to make that motion.
So moved.
Second.
The motion made by Alderman Klemm, and Shadle for suspension of the rules.
It's not debatable.
It was passed by two thirds majority.
Madam Clerk, would you please take the role in the suspension only?
Sanders?
No.
Klemm?
Aye.
Johnson?
Aye.
Simmons?
No.
Parker?
Aye.
Stacy?
No.
And Shadle?
Aye.
The motion to suspend fails because it needs two thirds and we only ended up with what, four to three?
American vote because half the council has voted in favor.
Repeat that again.
Don't we need six people attorney Zito?
Correct.
One, two, three, we only have four.
One, two, three.
We have four to three.
Oh I'm sorry so so you can call the mayor's vote but I don't depending how you vote I don't know if it makes a difference or not.
I object.
You can't object this is an attorney Huffines.
This is not an attorney ruling.
What?
Wait a minute.
It's not an attorney ruling.
It's a council ruling.
What are you talking about?
This is not a.
Please, please don't interrupt Alderman Sanders.
Well, you, you can't be saying things like that.
So, um, no, no, cause right now you have one, two.
The best we'd have is five to three.
Right.
So that's still one pass.
Okay.
So the suspension fails.
We'll move this on to the next regularly scheduled meeting.
Come on, Mayor.
Item number nine is the first reading of ordinance 2025-58.
Could you please read this?
Ordinance amending chapters 810 and 1250 concerning the licensing and zoning of vacation rentals.
Director Duckman.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
The Community Economic Development Department has been directed to draft an amended ordinance.
And the idea here is that vacation rentals, which is the RBO, Airbnb.
It's getting a little less technical here to kind of give you a better idea of what we're talking about.
Short term rental in line with those popular products is essentially what currently happens here is you could own a single family house and you could put it on Airbnb with proper licensing and have a short term rental weekend, et cetera.
So it has been brought to our attention to, and we were directed to draft a new ordinance that essentially is removing vacation rentals from the R1 through R4 residential district.
So again, to kind of break down what's going on here, R1 through R4, that is where you're allowed to have a single family home, not a duplex, not a four unit, that is your true one family residential neighborhoods and what has been directed and what staff is proposing tonight is eliminating short term rentals in single Family.
Bauer, John, and then we have the two short-term rentals in single-family housing.
That's the simplest way to kind of boil it down.
In a little background here, and also what would essentially happen is if you have a single-family home, we're proposing to eliminate the short-term vacation rentals.
If you have a two-unit duplex, three-unit, four-unit, et So that I hope gives a basic understanding of what's being proposed here.
To go with a little bit of background, on August 14, a public hearing was held by our planning commission.
And the outcome of that meeting was that our planning commission heard public comment.
We had one supporter and one objector present.
And to be clear, the pro vacation rental would be Clerk Anderson, do you remember being there just to confirm?
I was the opposer.
I'm sorry, you were opposing the, I'm getting the pros and negatives, but to be fair, you're pro, you were pro, you are not pro, you're against.
I'm against the ordinance change.
Yes, yes.
And I was present.
Just wanted to make that clear and that Alderperson Klemm was also at the hearing and he was for the ordinance which would outlaw the vacation rentals so I wanted to make that clear for some background so after that hearing was held by our planning commission they wanted to take some time and a motion was made to discuss at the next hearing which was September 11th of 2025 and all that being said The Planning Commission recommended approval of this text amendment pertaining to vacation rentals with what I had said earlier, eliminating them from the single-family residences.
And with that in mind, staff is recommending moving this ordinance forward.
Is there a motion to move this forwarder?
So moved.
Second.
A motion made by Alderman Klemm, seconded by Alderman Shadle.
Discussion on the ordinance?
Alderman Klemm?
Sure.
The real crux of this comes from everybody here believes in Airbnb's, everybody believes that it can be a positive thing for the community, there's no doubt about that, but it mostly stems from an incident and where it was at basically.
I believe it was June 6th at one of these Airbnbs that this person, first of all I'll We go back to the point where I was here when they originally discussed Airbnbs over a year ago and nobody really brought up the thought of what was going to happen in that area, what could happen in that area, what could develop in that area.
Nobody in that area would know who's going to be in that house, when they're going to be in that house, when it's rented, when it isn't going to be rented and who's there.
Also this person that rents this house doesn't have all the capabilities in the world of finding that out who calls them up and says I went to rent your house for the evening.
So this house here is in a neighborhood that's probably 250 to $300,000 houses.
On a Friday night all of a sudden a whole bunch of cars started pulling up to the house and keep in mind as this person rents this Airbnb they have their total family with little kids above this.
They rent out just their Miller.
They've developed a sidewalk and entrance into that basement.
They've created a pool out there and they've created an area where this could be used.
Approximately, they got a phone call, I'm not sure what the time was, confirm it with the chief, but 10 o'clock is the area in there.
One of the neighbors called, the owner also called.
He had a whole bunch of people downstairs.
There were cars out in the street and come to find out the whole end of this deal was there were probably I believe 10 to 15 years under 20 years old left and they confiscated I'm going to say at least a dozen loaded weapons, okay.
Now I don't think this is a normal thing that should happen at your house on Friday night, especially if you live in a $200,000, $300,000 neighborhood.
That's my concern.
The people have come to me, okay, and said, look, if I buy a house in a residential area in single family homes, I'm expecting it to be a single family home.
I'm not expecting a commercial thing to be rent out.
The night before this happened, there were 10 cars there.
Okay.
What this person actually did is there's zero security involved in it.
They provided no security and instantly the police were called.
So we were their security for this whole thing to try and straighten it out.
And you've got people still that from the DNA, all these weapons are gonna be possibly traced to different people and to be arrest made off the deal.
So that enlightened everybody there to say, hey, Johnson.
This is what we got in our neighborhood and we don't like it.
So that's where my opinion and the opinion of all the people in that neighborhood come from.
Any other discussion?
Alderman Johnson.
I'm not sure how many of these Airbnbs we have here in Freeport, but they are businesses.
Three is all we have?
We have three in Singleton.
Okay.
And they bring, I mean, they bring people in who spend money here.
So that's, you know, part of the city.
The other thing I'm thinking about, you know, you do take a chance when you're a person that owns an Airbnb of who you rent to, but I know any of the vacation rentals that we've ever rented, there's a very long contract that you have to fill out with them that has a lot of stipulations on it, what you can do and what you can't do, how many cars you can park there, and a lot of things that regulate that that I think could be put in place for those that do have Airbnbs.
So I don't know, and you know, plus the fact that when you live in a home, you don't really know if that house beside you goes up for sale, you don't know who might come in there, you don't know if they might have guns, you don't know if they might be on drugs, and you know, that sort of thing, so there's, you know, you take chances every day.
So I'm not sure that this would be friendly for the City of Freeport to say we don't want your Airbnb businesses in our residential areas.
And we have a number of air bnbs that are in the air bnbs.
There are not very many R5 or R6 areas.
I know west of west of west, there's a lot that are east of west, so I'm not sure how all that plays out for fairness for people that own those homes and maybe are looking to have a business here in Freeport.
We could put a limit maybe on the number of air bnbs we have.
Also I'm thinking could we do like they have to have a Huffines.
We're going to have a special use permit every year or something like that instead of totally disregarding this altogether.
Those are my thoughts.
All right.
Hold on one second.
I'm sorry, but that is laughable.
So because it happened in this area and these houses are worth that much, we're going to ban it for single-family houses.
But in the areas that happen to be mostly apartments, we're going to allow it because these houses are $250, $300,000 which was repeated a couple of times so it's not okay there but it's okay in other neighborhoods and to even feel safe making a statement as such is is wow.
Director, I have a question in this would that be in effect immediately or is there can you enlighten that there's M.
So essentially the ordinance reads that this would, they would have to still, basically the current licenses for the three properties that we're speaking of, they would still have to reapply for the license.
If they let it lapse on their own, they let it lapse on Johnson.
If they continue to reapply, it would sunset January 1st, 2029 and after such date, all licenses would cease to be valid.
So a little over three years.
Correct.
Any other discussion?
I have my second.
Yeah.
Sure.
I would like to agree with Alderperson Johnson.
We are trying to be a tourist town, we are trying to do things to draw people here.
We only have two, I'm not sure if the other one is still open, legitimate hotels that you wouldn't mind staying in.
So and myself, I have a couple of kids, so when we go, we use Airbnbs, I don't understand why you would want to stop that for the city of Freeport.
I can't.
It just doesn't.
It just doesn't make sense.
Anyone else?
Yeah.
Alderman Sanders?
Yeah.
Director Duckman, how long has this, do you know, if you know, that this ordinance has been in existence?
Well, the current short-term vacation rental ordinance, I would say, has been what?
Clerk Anderson, five years, right around COVID, I think.
We had bed and breakfast on the books for a very long time, because that's an older model.
But we added the Airbnb pre-COVID.
I've been here eight years, somewhere between five and eight years.
It's a newer concept, correct?
So when we're talking short-term rentals, the idea generally is that short-term rentals, by the way, it is not just in the city of Freeport.
It's a hot topic.
It causes quite a bit of conflict.
On one side of the coin.
People believe that they're good for the community because they are adding tourism.
And it also allows property owners to make some extra revenue.
On the other side, not just in the city of Freeport, but there has been complaints with people use them for parties or use them for nefarious activities.
And it makes neighbors upset.
So I think there's good discussion here.
Staff was directed to draft this ordinance.
It's through the Planning Commission.
It's at two Planning Commission meetings.
And I anticipate for the next two readings, if it gets that far, there's going to be plenty more heated discussion.
So.
Oldham and Sanders?
Yeah, just elaborating on the concerning of neighborhood areas that has got a concern about the vacationing property and the zoning and the licensing.
And we have not set up any policies or anything like that, guidelines for the people who does have concerns about the area of vacationing rentals and things like that.
We have not set up guidelines for those kinds of things.
What are the policy terms and conditions that helps to guide to let the community know or the citizens know in the community area that these are the guidelines that you have to abide by and what is permitted and what is not permitted.
Have we had that discussion or have you had that discussions with those residents that are already currently living in those areas?
Yes, we had, let's see, we had two planning commission meetings that we talked about before.
I took some notes on that.
We had a meeting on August 14th.
And as I stated before, Clerk Anderson and Alderperson Klemm were in attendance there.
Notes I wrote down from that meeting was quite a bit of consideration and discussion.
And based on that, from August 14th, the meeting was moved to the next regularly scheduled meeting for more discussion.
So the second meeting would have been September 11th.
And again, some of the issues that were one of the notes I wrote was that one supporter, Alderperson Klemm, his concerns were for safety, illegal activities, and parking concerns.
And as Clerk Anderson has stated, she's provided that she obviously works in the licensing and can fill you in on all of the requirements for a license.
Huffines.
She's a member of the public, but she also came in as a member of the public issuing her support of the, you know, of the matter.
So I mean, to answer, the reason I'm stating this is to answer your question, has the public been notified?
Well, yes, through two meetings before we've even gotten to this part of it.
And we've had members of our- So does this ordinance have protocols to it?
Does this ordinance have protocols?
Yes.
It does have protocols.
And so that should spill everything out to the residents of those areas.
The easiest thing to explain to somebody is no.
If I have a single family house, what is the protocol for having a vacation rental?
That's easy.
No.
That's what you're voting for.
I'm not trying to be insulting, but that's literally what this says.
I want to have an Airbnb in my single family house.
If you vote for this, you're saying no, you cannot.
Or if you're in favor of it, you're saying, yes, you can do it.
That's the heart of it.
You know what I mean?
There is no, I mean, once, if you vote for this ordinance, you're saying, we don't think it fits in our community, no.
You can't do it.
Alderman Parker?
That's, go ahead.
Sorry, I'm sorry.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
And I, yes, I was asked to clarify that, okay, so I'm just, I always try to talk and make Walsh, and so on.
So I'm going to make things simple by best I can.
Right now what you would be voting on is single family house, no, you cannot have an Airbnb.
If you have a duplex, you would have to go to a hearing and ask for permission or ask, you'd have to have it voted on by council, which is that special use hearing.
If you have a duplex, you would have to come, it wouldn't be allowed by right.
You would still have to show up to a zoning board hearing, to a planning commission hearing, to a city council hearing to be allowed to have a Airbnb or BRBO.
And we're not voting on anything tonight.
This is first reading.
Okay.
Alderman Parker?
I wasn't going to say anything, but the way I understand this, I own a single family home and if I happen to be a snowbird and want to go to Florida for the winter and I have some friends that want to come in and rent my house, I can't do it under this ordinance.
You know, it's my house, I didn't ask permission when I bought the thing.
What's defined short term?
Winslow short-term, what have I got a month, two weeks?
What's a short-term?
Less than 30 days.
Less than 30.
Okay.
Maybe I wanna go visit my family out in California for two weeks or three weeks.
Somebody said, needs a place, yeah, come on in, I can't do that.
But I didn't get permission when I bought the place.
So I'm just against it, so thank you.
All right, then we will move on.
I did wanna just share, if nobody else, if nobody else mirrored my thoughts.
So I believe the Airbnb craze is really popular.
I think it's growing nationwide.
I think it adds a lodging option.
Personally, I've stayed in many, in several states, single-family homes, multi-units.
I've stayed by myself.
I felt very safe.
Currently, there are three license holders, but we've had more.
And if you go onto an Airbnb website, as many as like maybe even seven will pop up.
It's very difficult to find where these are located and you don't get an address until you make that reservation.
So you don't know the location.
I have already sent out applications to, I'll find an address, I'll find a homeowner and they will sometimes ignore the application.
Our third one just got licensed this year because it's a new owner.
But I knew where it was for years.
They just never turned the application back in.
There's probably about three I don't know of.
Three I know of that I don't know the address for.
One of my concerns is if this passes, it will be very punitive to the people who have followed the rules.
We have three people who have come in religiously and got licensed, very easy to work with.
But I don't see any enforcement or no gut to go out and find those ones who aren't licensed.
So we're gonna punish the ones who have been licensed by taking their license away.
That doesn't make sense to me.
I attended both planning commissions.
I heard, you know, we don't want it in our neighborhood.
I think that special use is the tool to solve that because you ask our neighbors, You could leave a special use, R1, single family.
It could be special use all the way through.
And then when somebody wants to get licensed, they get the special use.
Can you ask your neighbors, do you want us here?
They can say yes.
They can say no.
And that'll just take care of itself.
It'll be in the neighborhoods that want it.
It'll be in the neighborhoods that don't.
We do have ordinances on the books.
And I'm quite certain the number of cars are limited because I remember that being a big discussion.
We might have even limited it to one, but no more than two cars are allowed.
And I suspect that's maybe why the owners maybe started calling because they knew that was something they could call about was too many cars in the driveway.
And I just wanted to address, this was a very unfortunate event.
I don't want it to happen again.
But I think this is kind of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
I think we're knee-jerking too many rules over one bad incident and I just wanted to add that there was concern about that in this particular incident there were children living upstairs and I and I feel for that, I understand that, but also this homeowner chose to get that license knowing he has two children and I think that should be the homeowner's choice.
My two cents.
All right, we will move on to item number 10, which is the adoption of resolution 2025-109.
Could you please read this?
Resolution authorizing the payment of an invoice from Green Road Tire Recycling for Citywide Huffines.
Thank you.
Good evening.
In August, the City of Freeport conducted a tire recycling event where residents could bring passenger car and semi-truck tires to be disposed of.
The City utilized the services of Green Road Tire Recycling to dispose of the tires.
This event was planned in coordination with other dumping events such as Refresh Freeport and the Electronic Recycling Event.
Gills Freeport Disposal recommended Green Road to be the main collector of the tires.
At the event, they collected 7,029 passenger car tires and 118 semi-truck tires.
Hundreds of residents took advantage of the service and the city received positive feedback from residents and surrounding communities.
The full amount of the invoice, which is about 38,000, has been budgeted for and will be paid from the Health and Environment Fund.
Thank you.
Is there a motion to adopt?
So moved.
Second.
We have a motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Johnson.
Discussion on the resolution?
Seeing none, Madam Clerk, please take the roll.
Sanders is temporarily absent.
Klemm?
Aye.
Johnson?
Aye.
Simmons?
Aye.
Parker?
Aye.
Stacy?
Aye.
And Shadle?
Aye.
The resolution is adopted six to zero.
And we'll move on to item number 11, which is the adoption of resolution 2025-111.
Resolution setting the date and hours for trick-or-treating in the city for 2025.
Thank you, Manager Boyer.
Thank you, Your Honor.
In the past, trick-or-treating has been observed on Halloween, October 31st.
For the past several years, the hours have been from 5 PM to 7 PM This year, Halloween falls on a Friday.
This year, the city is collaborating with the Freeport School District second graders and their civic responsibility unit for social studies.
You'll be touring City Hall and the police station and have the opportunity to role-play a City Council meeting deliberating on the same resolution.
Staff recommendation is to keep the trick-or-treating on Friday, October 31st from 5 PM To 7 PM Staff requests the approval of this resolution.
Is there a motion to adopt?
Second.
Motion made by Alderman Parker, seconded by Alderman Shadle.
Discussion on the resolution.
Madam Clerk, please take the roll.
Sanders is absent.
Klemm?
Aye.
Johnson?
Aye.
Simmons?
Aye.
Parker?
Aye.
Stacy?
Aye.
And Shadle?
Aye.
The resolution is adopted, 6-0.
And item number 12 is adoption of resolution 2025-112.
Could you please read this?
Resolution approving application for contract with FLOC safety for live video cameras, additional and a license plate reader cameras and mobile trailer cameras.
Thank you, Chief Shenberger.
Thank you.
So as I discussed last week, earlier in the year, I had some representatives from FLOC that came and did a presentation on the products that they offer and how they could help us as law enforcement officers.
I've applied for several grants and looked for different funding throughout this year.
And fortunately, I was able to secure some funding through Senator Durbin's office, by utilizing lobbyists through sound thinking.
There's a wish list of things that comes with that.
However, we realize that if that funding falls through, more than likely, it's not going to happen.
And within the contract for FLOC, there's a contingency, if the appropriations for some reason don't pass, then we're not, or we don't have to pay that amount of money.
So I also secured organized crime retail theft grant from the attorney general's office for $9,000.
So the plan basically is to leverage that money to start this project one month early that gives us into December and then utilize the appropriations dollars for the year of 2026 and 2027.
Thank you, chief.
Is there a motion to adopt?
So moved.
Second.
Motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Parker.
Discussion on the resolution.
Madam Clerk, please take the roll.
I have.
Oh, Alderman Stacy, I'm sorry.
So this is, you're asking for a voting to approve this.
Approve the resolution for the chief to move forward on what he just made a comment on.
Okay.
I do have a question, but I don't know, Do it come now or later?
This is the one pertaining to the drones you were speaking of?
No, this is for license plate reader cameras, some live video bundles with those, a trailer camera that is live video, and then a trailer camera that has a license plate reader camera in it.
And also it's like a speed wagon with a license plate reader camera in it.
Can you tell me like what does it cost per year to operate this.
Right, so, I mean, this is covered, this would be covered under appropriations, dollars, and grant money, but roughly, I know it's in the agreement, but the money that we're utilizing is $200,000 from appropriations, $69,000, that's for the license plate reader cameras, or I'm sorry, $100, $100,000 for two years for license plate reader cameras, $69,200 for two trailer cameras for two years.
And then we're also using the $9,000 that we're getting from the Organized Crime Retail Theft Grant.
So that's what it's gonna cost for two years.
However, all that money is not coming out of the city's funds, that's all money that's being appropriated to us and already given to us through grant.
Okay, any further Alderman Sanders?
Yeah, have you had an opportunity to determine whether this is appropriate for this particular county or this city to determine if it doesn't violate anybody's rights or anything of that nature?
So in order for us to even do a search, we have to have a reason, a law enforcement reason, So generally, you know, a crime's occurred or if there's a missing person or something like that.
So we have to put a reason in.
And there are certain things you can't search for.
We also have to put a case number in there.
And all that data is collected by the state and it's audited.
So we have to have a law enforcement reason to even access the cameras.
Now, the live video, that's something that I've talked to people in the community.
They feel like, you know, we need more live video out there.
It's very helpful, you know, as long as it's in the right place, in the right time, capturing the right thing, you know, it's very helpful for us for certain things.
So we do utilize license plate reader cameras right now.
There's through Motorola or Vigilant, something that the city committed to, I think it was in 2021.
So it's a different platform, but Vigilant doesn't have the trailer cameras and the other two things that we're looking to get to.
Fock is a smoother, easier to use, more modern platforms.
It's something that wasn't available in 2021.
It kind of really became popular about two years ago.
A lot of agencies are going to that.
So that's why I chose them.
Well- Would you like your second time, Alderman Sanders?
Yeah.
Okay.
I'll be able to elaborate a little bit longer.
Go ahead.
I need to use my four minutes.
No, just to ask your question.
All police vehicles will be designated with a plate reader.
No, these are not mobile devices.
These would be stationary.
Stationary?
Yeah, and they're solar powered.
And they're located throughout the city?
They would be, yes.
Okay.
All right.
Thank you.
Alderman Stacey?
You know, um, I hear you talk about more cameras, more, you know, we tried to get cameras and it was shot down like fire burning in a forest.
It was not wanted.
Now, all of a sudden, now we want cameras.
And so I don't know if this will pass or not but since we want cameras we could get them and it was grants and money out there where we could have had cameras on every telephone Cameron's on every telephone pole to help detour some of the crime here in our city And we were denied that right but now With you bringing it to the council They're all in little sad to me Because I don't know what rights were denied Alderman Johnson So did this grant just come out recently or it just came out recently you could apply for it So the yeah, the retail theft grant it's an annual grant.
It's one that you can reapply for every year Okay, and that's for the $9,000 the appropriations.
That's something totally different.
You know, that's being appropriated to us through Senator Durbin's office.
So I don't Darren's probably more knowledgeable about that type of money this first time I've ever Been able to secure funds that way.
I've been able to get a lot of grants, but so Winslow, but it's for two years, that one's for two years, the attorney general's $9,000.
That's just a one year thing, but we can reapply for it.
You want your second?
Sure.
And so just to clarify, this won't go forward unless we get the grant money and we'll use part the appropriations money for part of these things, but we won't get it all unless we get the grant money.
Is that correct?
Right.
So, I mean, let's say the grant, the $9,000 for sure thing, I've already been awarded that.
I'm just playing it safe, you know, I asked for a contingency in the contract and there is one in there, so if the appropriations fail, then we're left with $9,000, which gives us about two to three cameras.
Okay, thank you.
Madam Clerk, please take the roll.
Sanders.
Aye.
Klemm.
Aye.
Johnson.
Aye.
Simmons.
Aye.
Parker.
Aye.
Stacy.
Aye.
And Shadle.
7, 7-0.
Did you say 6, Madam Clerk?
It's 7.
Oh, yes, that's because we have everybody back on the floor now.
7-0.
Thank you, Attorney Zito.
Sorry.
Item number 13 is the adoption of Resolution 2025-113.
Could you please read this?
Resolution Endorsing Community Solar Savings Program through Illinois Shines, which is a state-administered incentive program to support the development of new solar projects.
Manager Boyer?
Thank you, Your Honor.
The City of Freeport has been asked if we would like to participate in the Illinois Solar Energy Incentive Program.
Solar developers are often required to offer subscription incentives.
The city's largest accounts, 100KW and under, would be eligible to receive the monetary bill credits from the program incentive.
These incentive programs work on a 20-year subscription timeline, and this program was almost reviewed by Mr. Mudge, who is here tonight on September 8th, 2025.
This subscription program application will allow Freeport to participate and receive solar incentives from solar array projects that are being installed in the area.
Freeport will not have any financial or.
I did not pass that out.
I'm so sorry.
Do you want me to get copies for everyone?
We're just going to read it.
I'm just going to.
I'll read it.
I'm so sorry, Robert.
That's okay.
That's OK.
The city utility accounts are appealing to the program due to the large and consistent use of electricity.
Many Northwestern Illinois cities are joining this program, and there is a brochure if someone is interested to see it.
But Mike did present at the last Committee of the Whole, so there were many questions as to that time.
So there is no financial requirement except the provider will charge a subscription fee from the credit received.
Staff will also incur work time to subscribe and provide detailed account information.
Staff is recommending the City Council to approve moving forward with the community solar with Illinois Shine to receive solar credit incentives.
Is there a motion to adopt?
So moved.
Second.
The motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Klemm.
Discussion on the resolution?
Alderman Simmons.
So if I can Persuade any of you even since before my time on council I cannot think of one person that has said I'm glad that the city has done this program and I would like to remind you all that last time we set up we signed up for this the company was not able to honor their contract so please just keep those things in mind when making your decision.
Manager Boyer?
I'd like to make one minor Johnson.
I have a minor comment related to this.
The aggregation contract is what the city has done in the past.
This is something new and this is completely different from the aggregation contract.
This would allow the city to receive solar credits for the solar arrays that are already being built by other people.
It's the next item.
Alderman Johnson.
From what I understood, the gentleman telling us, is that the subscriptions that we do are to give money to have more solar farms or plots put up.
So if we get electricity, he said that's already used in all these other farms that are around.
So this means they're going to be putting more solar farms around the city of Freeport, right?
Well, we have Mr. Mudge here.
Maybe he can be a little more specific.
Mr. Mudge, would you wanna address that?
Thank you for the question.
Basically the state, the state and the governor wants to promote clean, clean power and the subscriptions when you subscribe on it's going to be for new new fields that are being developed right now or being developed in 2026 and they need subscribers.
Will it continue on past 26 or 27?
We really don't, we do really don't know, it all depends on the incentives and things like that.
Where they will be built and where they'll be placed is where it's gonna be economically beneficial to connect into the ComEd grid.
So, I don't know if that's answering your specific question, Linda, Ms. Johnson, but wherever these are going to be built will be in approved locations through the Illinois Shines program and doesn't necessarily mean there's gonna be a lot more here in Freeport or not.
Probably nothing in their city but in most likely rural areas where the connection fees to comment are lower.
Does that help?
Go ahead.
So chances are they would be in agriculture, For example, a good solar project is like what's being built right here in the city of Freeport on the old landfill.
That's a perfect use for land that cannot be really used for anything else.
But there's more incentives for solar companies to go into like brown areas and different things like that, you know, throughout and build them.
Will it draw up more farmland?
That's possible.
But that's a farmer's choice or his opportunity.
What we're looking at though for the specific city accounts is take advantage of the program that the state's created to promote solar and we can do this now.
Everyone, I mentioned last time, everyone in combat area pays into the solar fund.
So it's up to the council here whether or not you want to get some of that money that's being paid and leaving City Freeport back in for public works, accounts only.
Any further discussion?
Madam Clerk, please take the roll.
Sanders?
No.
Klemm?
Aye.
Johnson?
No.
Simmons?
No.
Parker?
Aye.
Stacy?
No.
And Shadle?
Aye.
I have three in favor, four against and the resolution fails.
Move on to item number 14, which is the adoption of resolution 2025-114.
Could you please read this?
Resolution approving an electrical aggregation agreement with, if we agree on our low bidder, that'll be that person, for the retail supply of electric for residential and small business customers in the city of Freeport.
Manager Boyer?
Thank you, Your Honor.
As we discussed at the Committee of the Whole last week, we received B- Last week, we received bids.
I believe MC squared was a little better.
And let's see, we've got it up on the screen here for you.
That's why I forgot to pass out.
So with that being said, staff would recommend moving forward with MC squared for the low kilowatt provider at two years.
At what rate are we talking about?
At 9.89 cents per kilowatt hour.
9.89?
Yes.
Is that your conclusion?
Yes, staff recommends the two-year, but obviously it's at council's discretion.
So I move.
Second.
Motion made by Alderman Klemm, seconded by Alderman Shadle.
Discussion on approving MC squared.
Alderman Stacey.
As Alderman Simmons stated earlier, that last year when we did this, everybody was automatically changed.
If you didn't want the change, you had to send in a paper apting out, and then they couldn't even fulfill and the need and so why are we back here again and being that we're back here again I hope this time if people choose to take it that they have a choice and not that they're automatically and others, and then they had to change back.
So I don't know how that works, but to change everybody to this MC2, I think it should be optional.
If they want MC2, they can call But to switch everybody automatically?
No.
We were clearly shown last year.
It did not work.
And now we're all back with comment.
Manager Boyer?
Mr. Mudge, I don't know if you can provide some clarity on this, but we've done this for many different times.
People have saved thousands of dollars on their overall power bill but could you explain why last year was different than the past years and why it's different than this year and just based on those rates how much do you think we'll end up saving based on ComEd's base rate right now?
Sure, last year Council did agree and we had a signed agreement with Nordic Energy.
However, their cost, not to their fault, but it was a pass-through charge, increased the charges where they could not honor that contract.
However, we decided to give it a rest and have everyone go back to ComEd.
At that time, we did not know what the ComEd rate was going to be.
Now, we know what the ComEd rate is and the actuality, this one I I looked at the new ComEd rate tariffs that came out for September through May and the ComEd rate now is at 10.6 cents.
The MC squared rate, whether you do a one year or two year contract, that's what it'll be.
Now the bottom line is the state set up the program where it would be an opt out program.
If you don't want to be in it, that is the customer's choice.
But by not passing or adopting a contract, customers do not have a choice at all.
They're just on ComEd or on a supplier of their own.
And they have that choice.
So what difference does the difference between the one or the two-year contract make?
If there's a penny difference, and we have 3,000 customers in Freeport, then the average customer uses about 700,730 kilowatt hours, ComEd customers.
So that's saving each customer $7, $7.50 if they want it.
If they don't, they can stay on ComEd right now.
So ComEd's rate is set.
So, by passing this ordinance, you're giving the customers a choice back that was really taken away from them when we all agreed we didn't know what the new comment rate was back in April or May when we had to replace that original contract.
What's going to stop it from happening, no, he's called up to take questions.
I have a question.
What's going to stop it from happening again?
We can't say that it is or isn't going to happen again.
It's out of your hands too.
The regulated rate that was passed on to Nordic Energy has now set for the next two years.
The suppliers know what their costs are.
They will hold that rate.
But you told us that last year about.
When we did this last year, we did not know what the federal pass-through costs were going to be, and in the past, in the past it was known.
It all has to do with the demand for power going up so, so, so much.
But to me, I'm just simply saying, if you want to give your residents and your very Shadle, Alderman Shadle If we look at 3,000 residents, which is low?
Oh, the city?
Not the residents, the city.
This has nothing to do with the city?
No, on this contract, how much do we save as the city of Freeport?
The city does not save any money at all?
No.
This is strictly for your residents?
No, no, no.
Not the city residents.
I'm talking the city water department, the city sewer department.
Our billing, the city of Freeport, billings.
All right, I'll answer that.
Our contract, decision contract right now ends December 2026 for the city water accounts, as I get the rate of 5.61 cents.
And that's, that's the public word.
Attorney Sito can answer.
If I'm understanding your question, it'll, electric aggregation, this particular contract is strictly for residential, city, residential and small, small businesses.
We have a separate for the city accounts like our Wastewater Treatment Plant and etc.
So that's a separate contract that we have each year for the city accounts.
Alderman Parker?
Just a quick question.
We approved this tonight.
Do the people in the city have to do this or they can ignore it and stay with comment?
People have two choices to opt out.
Once they'll get a letter, under city letterhead, from MC Squared, if they were chosen, to say, here's what your rate will be starting in December, if you don't want to be part of this program, let us know.
Secondly, a ComEd switch letter comes out, what was the state's the same thing, in case somebody misses it.
This is state statute, how that's supposed to work.
ComEd will send out a switch letter.
And again, if you do not want to be part of the program, you cannot.
Anyone else that would be automatically in the program.
But one thought that I had I wanted to mention.
What's the value of this to the city of Freeport?
If it's $7 a month times 3,000 residents that's $21,000 a month that stays in the city might not seem like a lot But every to me every dollar count.
So you have to opt out or you can just ignore it and not respond at all If you ignore it, you will be you you will be switched and that's the state.
That's the state statute It's like it's always been Alderman Parker.
If you want out you have to opt out.
Otherwise you're in and Alderman Sanders.
Yeah, I know exactly what you're doing, sir, with this Nordic thing and trying to get it proposed to the city of Freeport or the residents of Freeport.
The thing that I found out, and it's like you said, they had issues managing how they want to want to implement their program, but they fail.
They initially failed their program because I was part of that program, and they had so much difficult.
And they had so much difficulties with it.
In order for you to opt out of it, you have to not only go back to ComEd, but you have to go through another agency so they can enforce it.
They have to enforce it.
There's another agency that enforces it that keeps companies like Nordic and ComEd to impose upon residents to make, to opt them in when they don't want to be in there.
If they don't, if they don't acknowledge it to, I forgot the name of the company, but there's another agency that they have to acknowledge it with them so they can inform ComEd.
It's almost like another liaison that's working on behalf of these suppliers.
And I ended up getting out of that program with Nordic even though I did have to go through the procedures but to get another agency to have come here to recognize that I wanna be with another supplier.
Now you're back here again, trying to say that it's the state law.
If it's the state law, then why am I with another supplier if it was, and Nordic was having all these issues, Why is Nordic coming back in to the picture?
Nordic is not.
Nordic's.
MC.
MC square?
Is it MC square?
Different.
Oh, okay.
Completely different supply.
They just changed the name is what they did, huh?
No.
Oh, okay.
But anyway, it's not something that I think, like one of the aldermen says, that if he doesn't comply or acknowledged to a certain agency, then they automatically back into whatever this is that you're talking about, this MC square.
I don't think that should be something that the citizens of Freeport should be considering.
If they have suppliers already in existence right now that they're using other than ComEd, that they should continue to use their supplier Miller.
I know there's another agency in play that all residents have to acknowledge that they do or do not want to be part of this program.
So I'm just saying, that's just my observation on these matters and I think we should take these into consideration that what you're proposing, I don't know, what really, does it have a clown mask on it or whatever, I don't know.
Oldham and Johnson?
Customers do have three choices.
Three now.
There are three choices.
One, stay uncommitted.
Two, they could go back, or they could go under the city program of P squared and appreciate a better rate and save a few dollars on a round-trip bill.
Three, you can go out like you probably did and choose your own supplier at your own risk.
So that's the three choices that all customers have.
And I think that you, I don't say you owe it to it, but you should think about giving your residents all three options so that they can make their choice.
It's their choice once it leaves here, it's back to them and their choice.
Alderman Johnson.
So the majority of the residents in the city of Freeport are just on ComEd right now.
And according to this paper it says that from September 25 to May 26, it's 10.229 cents per kilowatt hour.
Now you're saying it's 10.6 right now?
It's 10.6 because it goes from September through May on the new rate.
On the new rate of 10.6.
Right.
That was like for the four summer months and blended to the winter but but now it's 10.6.
So if we choose this contract MC2 we choose the two-year contract we would be locked in at nine point eight nine cents per kilowatt hour for those two years which is less than what we're paying now with ComEd which is the current rate is 10.6 which could change at the end of May or in May 26 it could Klem, Johnson, Simmons, Parker, Stacy, Shadle.
The resolution is adopted, five to two.
No, that's not right.
Four to three.
So it's because half the council's voted, you would need to call the mayor's vote.
Say that again, sir.
So when you have half of the council, four, vote in favor of an item, then you can call the mayor's, that's one of the situations where the mayor's entitled to vote.
I heard you say that.
Okay, I'ma hold you to that.
Okay.
Okay, I'm gonna hold you right there, because I want to- Okay, this is a nonsense discussion.
Mayor, what's- I'll stop that.
Mayor, what say you?
I'm talking- Aye.
I'm asking him a question.
You're talking nonsense.
The resolution is adopted five to three.
Item number 15 is the adoption of resolution 2025-115.
Could you please read this for the record?
That's the legal move, and I'm glad- Resolution authorizing memorandum of understanding with AFSCME for street or forest reform and Temporary Assignment as Acting Street Superintendent.
That pass.
Manager Boyer.
Thank you, Your Honor.
The city superintendent has a significant amount of personal time off due to his years of service.
Additionally, his management leadership responsibilities require him to be on call a significant amount of the time due to the nature of his current public works role.
To ensure our staff is fully supported and has adequate time off and receives appropriate rest Downtime staff is requesting that a Memorandum of Understanding be approved by the City Council to allow for additional hourly pay for appointed foreman who takes on added responsibilities thereby covering this time off.
This MOU pay will be for approved and assigned coverage only.
The MOU approval will allow our superintendent to take appropriate time off ensuring that the quality of their time off by knowing that they have some experienced staff who can handle the calls.
Is also allowed for scheduling formal coverage with the foreman in advance of their PTO or weekend off.
This increase in pay for the foreman will only be for the added responsibility as actual work time assigned during approved time off by the superintendent.
This arrangement is similar to the MOU that was proposed for the water main break assignments in the utility.
The MOU will provide five $5 an hour increase in the appointed foreman hourly pay is approved only on an hours of coverage that are physically worked and logged in the absence of the superintendent during time off and recommendation to move forward with this $5 an hour increase to the foreman to cover for the street the street superintendent's time off.
Is there a motion to adopt?
So moved.
Second.
The motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Klemm.
Discussion on the resolution.
Alderman Stacy.
I don't understand how we can continue to move forward with increases when we're still waiting on a contract that's been not in action for three or four months.
Dasme Union continue to wait for a contract and we continue to wanna make increases everywhere but with them.
Manager Boyer.
What do you mean by three or four months?
You tell me.
No, I don't know what you meant by that.
When was their contract up?
When did their contract end?
Their contract is still in place and we're negotiating.
Yes, it's in place now until we hit one.
I believe you said something to the- However, but when did it end?
And you were not prepared to move forward with it, but you're prepared to move forward with increases where you want increases.
Let's be fair across the board.
They deserve a fair contract.
Let's make it happen.
This is providing additional wages to a street superintendent to cover in between time we've already discussed it with the union it is acceptable but to the it is acceptable to the unions moving forward.
So this is basically so that we can give our street superintendent time off and make sure that he gets to sign his duties during the time that he has weekend off.
And what about our 9-1-1 people working 12 hour days?
This has nothing to do with that.
I know it has nothing to do with it because we don't want to discuss that.
It's a different topic.
And it's a topic that will never make the agenda because you're not gonna put it on.
Ask me negotiations is not gonna be on the council floor.
No, it will not.
But I'm just saying get them a contract.
Let's stay on task here.
Is there any questions?
Yep, let's stay on task.
Please stop being disruptive.
If there's no further discussion.
But you're disruptive to me.
If there's no further discussion.
Madam Clerk, please take the role.
Sanders.
No.
Klemm?
Aye.
Johnson?
Aye.
Simmons?
Aye.
Parker?
Aye.
Stacy?
No.
Shadle?
Aye.
The adoption, the resolution is adapted 5-2.
Item number 16 is the adoption of resolution 2025-116.
Could you please read this?
Resolution approving an airport management agreement with Freeport Aviation for Albertus Airport.
Thank you.
Manager Boyer?
Thank you, Your Honor.
The city issued reviewed a request for quote or RFQ for the fixed base operator airport manager contract for Albertus Airport on August 11th, 2025.
Initial meetings were held with four prospective applicants and three applicants submitted applications by the September 2nd deadline.
The applications were opened on September 4th at City Hall and reviewed opening by myself, the Mayor, Alderman Sellers, the Public Works Director Darren Steekle, City Clerk Dovie Anderson, and Attorney Steve Cox were present.
I am pleased to notify that all three applications received were excellent and all of them represented well-qualified applicants.
The lowest of the three responsible applicants was Jeff Monica Freeport, Illinois at $157,500 per year.
I am recommending the I'm just looking on the contract and it says that the operator airport operators shall who keep regular posted business hours, eight to six, Monday through Friday, eight to five, Saturday, and Sunday, eight to noon.
Now, does that mean that the operator will be there in person all of those hours, or can they just be reached by phone, or how do they cover all of those hours?
If I could answer that, I believe they can have a designee available during those hours.
Thank you.
Alderman Stacey.
Yes, who's going to run the airport when this person is at his other job?
And what terms was this negotiated under?
And is the contract for a year or 19 years?
I'll try to answer that.
The operator is responsible to cover the hours and I'm just asking what is an alternate?
Would you like me to finish the questions or go back to the alternate?
Finish the question.
Okay.
So that I understand, would you please remind me of the last question?
Yeah, that's a good question.
Okay.
So I'm just asking what is an alternate?
I'm just asking what is an alternate?
Remind me of the last question it is automatically renewed each year unless either the operator or the city is interested to open the contract and renegotiate it in which it will be a new request for quote be sent out in a similar fashion as this last one so it would be available for anyone to provide and I quote for him.
Okay, you say some about the hours stated, unless what?
No, I was trying to answer your question about the 19 years, one to 19 years.
So if the operator's happy and the city is happy, it will auto renew each year.
I said who is going to run the airport when he is at his other job?
And you said something about it will be ran that the hours stated by him or an alternate.
Right.
So what's an alternate?
We've never had an alternate before.
That's incorrect.
We have someone, it is, if there is an employee of the operator that can carry the office hours.
But the employee of the operator is not who got interviewed for the position.
You know, I just think it's sad that this lady that spoke to us tonight for 28 years you know this is her life this is her livelihood for 28 years she have ran that airport and there is nobody in miles that can touch her they're not equipped they don't know what they're doing Doerr and because they haven't done it and shame on you to take and not even consider her for this position.
Manager Boyer.
I will say that the current operator has been operating the airport for five years and this This was an open process that accepted three qualified statements or quotes.
The quotes were opened with a panel who reviewed them all and the lowest quote was the one that was recommended for council to move forward with.
Alderman Sanders?
Yeah, this resolution that is being brought into our focus at this time, who is drafting this authorization of this resolution?
And how do we even come to the decision of establishing whether or not we should move forward with this resolution in terms of who introduced this resolution?
I mean, I mean, who gives the author, who gives the authorization to move on it on an issue of this caliber of this magnitude when it comes to contracts and things like that?
I didn't know if I thought this was something that the council should be creating this type of resolution.
It's not, it shouldn't be the city manager who's creating this resolution of hiring and firing someone that's dealing with the contract.
I mean, just automatically spell out, had not spelled out the terms and things of this nature far as renewal and there's someone currently working there already.
Already, and I feel that if council has not intervened in terms of the drafting of this resolution, I think this thing should be dismissed, thrown in the garbage until we come up with the right protocol on how we're going to conduct contracts with any management organization and system that we should be totally informed about it.
And I feel that that is where we're at right now.
We're not in a position to be doing resolution with the improper authorization of this particular resolution.
And I feel that everyone here in council should really take a good look at this and see what is causing friction within the city and eliminating a superintendent out at the airport, eliminating that job and opening it up for others to come in and look at that job without any scrutiny.
I don't feel we should be conducting this type of thing and I think council has the last say so when it comes to the resolution of Authorizing Any Memorandum, and I'm just saying that should be the procedure, unless you show me something else in writing that does not give the council the authorization to dismiss something that we have not even considered.
Something that we have not even considered to authorize for a contract.
So I think the council Not not no administrative heads or city manager mayor or attorney Zito or anyone like that Injecting or imposing anything on this particular resolution matter and I think this should come directly from the Intelligent minds that sits here in our council to look at the overall picture Miller.
We have to make sure that what we're accepting here is properly set right or we got the proper provisions to allow such an authorization to go through.
I don't even think we should be even entertaining this matter at this time.
So let us re-evaluate ourselves and look at this thing real strong.
Your four minutes has expired, Aldrin Sanders.
Can I adopt it?
Yeah, your four minutes has expired.
Can I adopt it?
Can I adopt another minute?
No.
And no one's fired.
Every contract has an end date.
Are you making a comment, Mayor?
I can.
You can?
Would you please stop interrupting?
Every contract has an end date.
This is just an end date where.
Alderman Sanders, please stop.
I'm sorry.
Attorney Zito.
Just for clarification, this contract is being presented to you, the council, to vote on.
You can vote yes or no on it.
You guys have the final say on whether or not to approve who the city manager is recommending.
It's just a recommendation.
The council has the final say on it.
And that's what's before you guys tonight.
If you read the memo, it says that all three were qualified, the chosen one with lowest amount.
We're going to see.
Well, I want my second.
So unless there's any further discussion.
I want my second.
Oh.
You would like your second?
Yeah.
I like my second.
Okay.
Go ahead.
Yeah.
Attorney Zito, you failed to mention the fact that the person that put this on this agenda was not authorized to do so.
We failed to acknowledge that.
Yeah, go ahead.
The City Manager has the authority to place items on the agenda.
Well, we didn't see that in the memo.
There was no memo drafted on that matter.
Because we have to go through the same protocol.
That is an authority that the City Manager has to, I mean, all these other items are on the agenda that the City Manager put on the agenda.
Is there any other discussion on the resolution?
Whether it's the right protocol or not is one.
You should probably have a better understanding.
If there's nothing further, Madam Clerk, could you please take the roll?
Sanders?
No.
Klemm?
Aye.
Johnson?
Aye.
Simmons?
No.
Parker?
No.
Stacy?
No.
Shadle?
Aye.
We have three in favor, four against, the resolution is not adopted, it fails.
Please withhold.
Such inappropriate tonight.
It boggles my mind.
Let's try to remain professional.
Item number 17 is approval of a bid.
Could you please read this?
We had a bid opening on September 10th, 2025, sewer lining for 2025.
Manager Boyer.
The City of Freeport has nearly 130 miles of sanitary sewer during the annual project hand.
Thank you so much for being here.
We are getting into the process of doing our public evaluation, curing, and placing lining.
Locations are identified for rehab of the sanitary sewer piping that has cracks and defects, inflow and infiltration, or sags or settlements.
Our IEPA mandatory CMOM, that's the Sewer Capacity Management Plan, specifies that the Freeport addresses annual sewer rehabilitations for our collection system, mainline piping for environmental concerns.
Sewer lining is considered an industry accepted method of sewer main pipe rehabilitation and is more economical than open-cut excavation methods.
Sewer lining is over 10 times cheaper to install and industry standards estimate over 60 years of sustainable, useful life after installation.
On September 10, 2025, Fehr Graham and city staff had a public bid for 10,813 linear feet of sanitary sewer lining.
These sewer areas are identified as areas of street replacement.
The city has four reputable bidders that specialize in sewer lining and submitted bids.
National power rotting was the low bidder at $419,763 under the engineering estimate, I might add.
With approval, the installation should be completed by February 2026 and staff has budgeted this in the sewer budget.
Recommends moving forward with that national power riding with the lowest responsive bid.
Is there a motion to approve?
So moved.
We have a second?
Seconder.
There will be a motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Klemm.
Discussion on the bid?
Alderman Sanders.
Is there anybody else?
Alderman Sanders.
Oh, okay.
Sanders.
Oh, okay.
Managers of Boyer, we had this conversation before, I believe, and we talked on some of the things that would take place to make sure that the residents are aware of the construction work that is going to take place.
And John, and I'm going to ask you a question.
Will any of this interfere with their service as these guys begin to do their project lining program and everything?
Will anything disrupt their service in the process of you guys taking care of those linings?
** Should not.
* * And you guys are doing Huffines.
So I think we can do an installation that we can make sure that this is the appropriate thing to be doing for this particular area.
I don't know how extensive our televising program is, and so I couldn't, I really can't make an observation to determine what it is that is going on in that field, but I suspect you guys would keep us informed about the conditions of these lines and why we are investing into these projects.
Yes, that's correct.
Any further discussion?
Madam Clerk, please take the roll.
Sanders?
Oh yes.
Klemm?
Aye.
Johnson?
Aye.
Simmons?
Aye.
Parker?
Aye.
Stacy?
Aye.
And Shadle?
Aye.
The motion passes 6-7 to 0.
Item number 18, would you please Please read this discussion.
Discussion regarding awarding contracts to a dissolved business entity.
Alderman Simmons.
I'll try to get through this as quickly as possible.
Pursuant to my responsibilities as a duty, duly elected all the person I am formally requesting that the following might be placed on the agenda, which was just read by City Clerk Anderson, considering consideration and discussion regarding the city procurement practices in In relation to the awarding of contracts to a business entity that was involuntarily dissolved by the Illinois Secretary of State in June 2025, it has come to my attention that a business whose corporate status was involuntarily dissolved under 805 ILCS 512.40 of the Illinois Business Corporation Act continues to be awarded bids and contracts for city projects as dissolution terminates the legal standing of the corporation except for limited purposes.
And Stacey.
I would just like to read 805 ILCS 5-1240 of the Illinois Business Corporation Act outlines the procedure for the administrative dissolution of a corporation by the secretary of state for failing to correct a default, such as failure to maintain a Are- to maintain a registered office or file required document.
The secretary first sends a notice of delinquency to the corporation.
If the default is not corrected within 90 days for most defaults, 30 days for certain others.
The secretary issues a certificate of dissolution, formally dissolving the corporation.
And that's what has happened here with Albert and Son Earthworks LLC.
And if you go back in August, the 18th meeting, Davis, the 18th meeting, they were awarded these demos.
However, I believe it was June the 13th, 2025, they were already in an involuntary dissolved situation.
They're not even listed as a company currently and 90 days before that would have taken it three more months back.
So we're probably looking at them not having a license or being affiliated in the state as a company back into March.
Huffines, James, Jim, Jodi.
However, we just gave them jobs totally almost a quarter million, and they're not even registered in good standing.
How does that happen?
You know, we send out for these bids, and we're supposed to trust what you're bringing us.
And time and time again, we're finding that we can't trust what you're bringing us.
This should not be, this should not be coming to us if you're not in good standing.
You knew back in March that your license were suspended, April, May, June, July, August is when you were granted these.
And whoever chose this, I know it was the lower bid, but who's looking at the people that's bidding for these jobs?
And why didn't you know that they were not adequately a business with the state?
All of that is false.
Go ahead, Director.
No.
See, this is what I talk about.
You're telling me, don't be disrespectful to you, but you, this is the third time.
And you are putting out information that is not true.
This is the third time you have.
You are putting out information that is not true.
No, it's not.
I have it all right here.
Please.
Director Duckman, would you like to address those?
No, I understand and I think that it's certainly something I can see that you're upset.
I understand.
I'm not trying to talk.
Go ahead.
I'm sorry.
No, I'm just saying she's telling me I'm rude and I'm interrupted and don't but then she have fronted me three times tonight.
All right.
Go ahead, Wayne.
I was just going to say let's start back with what we're talking about here and I'll start with a simply with a simple explanation as I can.
And then I'll get I'll get into more of the details of the contract etc.
What what we're talking about here is when you have a company corporation the state of Illinois requires you to file the fee I do it every year I have a company and I believe it's right around $72 for corporation you file some paperwork it's usually about a page and every year you're required to file as a corporation in the state of Illinois, that's a rule.
So what we're talking about here is that Albert and Son, it has to do with when they filed their paperwork.
I have been in contact with Albert and Son on this matter.
They have filed their paperwork.
I've seen the receipts.
I have them.
I mean, I have no reason to be dishonest about that.
They have filed their paperwork.
My understanding is they filed their paperwork late, which is probably why it's showing up as an involuntary dissolved organization.
So if you file, I believe the deadline is August 1st.
Again, there's different types of corporations.
When I filed my corporation in the state of Illinois, the deadline was August 1st.
So if you don't file on August 2nd, you're going to be involuntarily dissolved by the state of Illinois.
The state of Illinois will let you file your paperwork late, But until you do file that paperwork late, you're involuntarily dissolved.
Now, going back to how does the city of Freeport protect itself from this type of inaction, whether it be with malice or not, whether they intended to, how do we protect ourselves?
There is a clause in our contract that says, we require all contractors to follow all state and federal laws.
When they bid on the project, they We know it's not just City of Freeport ordinances, it's state and federal laws.
Obviously, staff does everything they can to understand and to find any misuse of if somebody doesn't follow state or federal law.
They're obviously long, there's many rules, but when we know about it, we will address it, which is why I had been in contact with Albert and Son to figure out what's the issue here.
Is when staff becomes aware of an issue, they have the right to bring it back to council to terminate the contract.
We are now aware of the issue.
Albert and Son has filed the paperwork, they've showed me the receipts, I've seen the receipts, and now the next step would be council can either say there was an issue, they fixed it, or council can say you know what, that's not good enough for us, we're We're going to move to terminate the contract.
And there's really, I mean, those are your options.
To be fair, I mean, if you think that filing this paperwork is egregious enough to where they need to have these contracts revoked, I think you talk to counsel and see if that's something you want to talk about.
If you're like, no, you know what?
They made a mistake.
They were honest.
They showed that they filed their paperwork late.
We think that they've remedied the situation.
Let's move this forward.
I mean, that's a decision that I believe you should make.
I mean, if we want to talk about it more, I answer more questions about it, that's fair.
I mean, I'm here to answer them.
Alderman Sanders.
Thank you.
Director Duckman, I understand the incompliance of the contract, but the fact of the matter, what came first, the horse or the cart?
And the thing is, if the company or corporation was not in good standing with the state of Illinois, you cannot award or consider awarding any business entity, now let me finish, any business or entity with any acknowledgement of a potential contract, Huffines.
They're off the table.
They're not part of the bidding, whatever, receiving of the awards and contracts and things like that.
If there's others in line and one falls off that didn't come into compliance, then the others move up.
Other corporations move into that slot.
And so on.
But until then, that contract is still, like you say, they came in, they came in and came and got their company back on status and everything, but we're talking about time, dates, and when the state of Illinois gave them that status to do so.
But until then, that contract is still in play.
Or contracts or awards are still in play.
I don't know who the players are but the fact of the matter is the one that didn't come into compliance just can't jump back into the first line.
They just can't do that.
You know, they just can't, just because they fell off, they can't be the first who receives an award, contract award.
They can't do that.
That's not the proper way it should be done.
I don't know who else application was on file, but we needed to know that.
We need to know if there was other considerations that could have been awarded those contracts and things of that nature, so.
Fowler, and so on.
So until we understand the timing and the dates of those contracts or the awarding, then there shouldn't be any awards out if there was only one person receiving the award or one company receiving the award.
There shouldn't be any.
We shouldn't even be entertaining it.
As a matter of fact, it should have came back to the council so the and the Council could reevaluate it and say whether or not we want to move forward or not.
We can't just take it and say, well, we're going to wait until you come into compliance.
Make sure your status come into compliance.
We can't do that.
We have to be able to have that discussion while it's out there before someone has to correct their mistakes.
I understand your point completely.
I'm hearing you clearly.
What I'm saying is you need to make a vote now and make a motion to say I motion that the council revoke the contract and move to the next person because the contract has been awarded and then you have to make that motion.
That shouldn't have happened.
What's that?
That shouldn't have happened.
Wait a minute.
This is wrong.
I mean, if that's what you want to do, go ahead.
You can't vote on anything.
You can't vote tonight.
Tonight's a discussion only.
If something's This is putting out in a future council meeting for action, that's fine, but no vote can happen tonight.
I understand, and I apologize for my speaking, but my point, what I'm trying to say here is they are currently in compliance.
I have the receipts of them being in compliance.
So we're talking about this, and we're talking about that.
Our contract awards say that we require a person entering into the contract to follow federal, state, all laws, and when we know, as staff, that a law has been broken, that Huffines.
They're not in compliance with the law, and we know about it.
We're talking about it right now.
So if there's something, but we also know that a remedy was made.
They filed their paperwork.
I have the receipts.
They're now in compliance.
This is not about an awarding and a bid, Alderman.
We're not awarding a bid.
Alderman Simmons, did you have something?
So because as of June 2025 that on the state website that had not been resolved so I would like to know when also the bids we awarded we used grant funding knowing that they were or if not knowingly they were not compliant will that affect our future grants or put us from being able to get grants because we aren't doing what we're supposed to do.
No.
And I would say no, and I would confidently say no.
Anytime a grant manager is when you're working in a grant, they will always have comments, questions.
We need you to file a certain way.
We notice that you're missing this compliance here.
Anytime that you find an issue and you work to remedy the issue, they're not going to penalize you for that.
It's the same with the state of Illinois.
You missed your compliance date to register and If there's a remedy that wants to be investigated or discussed with our legal counsel, what remedies and options we have, I maybe ask that question.
I'm sorry.
My second question was the date.
I became aware of this probably early part of late last week.
It's probably my guess is when I became aware of the.
That's when I became aware that they weren't in compliance with this.
That's when I found out.
Yes, I have it on my phone.
If you give me a minute, I'll try to find it.
But I do have it.
It says receipts, filed the paperwork, paid the receipt.
I have it.
I have it in my phone.
Without using my second time, Attorney Zito, do you have anything to say to that?
Because I know in most cases when you use grant funding, you are audited and they come and they look at those things with a fine-tooth comb.
Do you have anything to add to that?
I don't know the specifics as whether or not this would create a problem for our grants.
I suppose that is a question ultimately for the grant administrators to say hey do you guys think this would cause a problem that at the time of the award they technically were not in good standing with the Secretary of State's office.
They have now remedied it.
What say you grant administrator does that create a problem?
I can't speak for the grant people.
We would have to ask them to know for certain.
Oldham and Klemm.
Just a question for Gertrude or Director Duckman.
Was a bid bond issued on this, Jim?
Yes, there's a bid bond in this.
It's actually a check.
They have a bid bond.
When contractors bid, they have the option stated clearly.
They can either do a check, cashier's check, or a bond.
So, and this one is a check.
Dollars and cents, regardless of what happens, we're covered.
Yeah yes then we will move on to item number 19 which is reports of department heads finance development nothing tonight madam mayor public works two things quickly we've had a significant amount of calls recently about sewer laterals or or Sewer Services at homes that have root issues.
Just a point of clarification for residents.
Sewer laterals or sewer services are owned by the homeowner from the house to the main.
Those issues, while you can call the city and ask for assistance, those are financially borne by the residents themselves as part of our codes and ordinances.
So that's one point I wanted to make.
The second point I'd like to make tonight, and I've hinted on this a handful of times, but recently we've seen an uptick from really abusive behavior to our public works staff and our people that answer the phones.
And I'm making it a point of clarification that we're not going to tolerate it at the public works department.
We will pull up lightly and all calls that are made that are abusive.
Our staff does not get paid to be abused.
I realize people are having situations that they're upset about.
That doesn't mean we get to scream, cuss and yell and take it out on the city employees.
We're here to help solve problems and moving forward, we will politely end all calls that are not done in a professional manner with our department.
Fire?
Nothing from fire this evening.
I just have two things.
First off, on the Freeport Police Department Facebook page, there is a flyer about the is a civilian police academy.
So we do have openings, we're looking for more people.
So if anyone's interested, you can visit our Facebook page.
We're taking people until September 26th and planning on starting on October 2nd.
So all the information's on there, there's a flyer.
Secondly, back in 2024, the Stevens County ETSB voted to switch report management systems.
So currently, the Freeport Police Department, Stevens County Sheriff's Department, and FIRE, we utilize a system called CIS.
We've been with CIS probably since 2012, I'm guessing.
Since 2012, CIS hasn't evolved at all.
It's just kind of remained stuck in the same form as what it was.
And so we felt that there was a need for a change.
So ETSB voted to switch to Central Square.
This is a huge project.
It's gonna go live tomorrow at eight o'clock.
There has been training, obviously, but we're gonna flip the switch tomorrow at eight a. M.
So please be patient, because that's gonna affect the way calls are generated.
It's gonna affect the way that we write reports.
It's also gonna, things that we've had available in certain parts of this program may not be available in Central Square.
We'll figure that out.
We'll work out the kinks on that.
I know one of the things that's really popular is our police activity blotter that's posted.
I believe that's like an algorithm or something correct.
That's not anything we control, but it was something that IT helped start.
As far as Central Square, we have to determine if that's even possible right now.
I mean, tomorrow is gonna be just the basics on how to operate it.
And then from there, we will dig deeper in there and find out exactly all the stuff that it has.
It definitely has a lot of different options and opportunities for us, but we're gonna have to learn it before we're able to showcase all that stuff.
Library.
Thank you.
I just wanted to make sure everybody here knows that the Sculpture Walk is having our big opening events this week.
On Friday, there is a ribbon cutting at 12 PM, which will be down by the gateway area of the Arts Plaza.
Area of the Arts Plaza.
And then the reception for the sculpture walk is from 5 to 7 PM at the library.
It is open to the public and you will be able to meet and greet with some of the artists of the sculptures.
IT, airport, city manager.
Yes, Madam Mayor, I have two items.
The project that's going on at the intersection of Stephenson and Perk Boulevard has had an expected completion date of Friday September 19th due to a gas main issue this project will be worked on through the next week.
The gas main in the intersection is at risk of being disrupted and the gas company has been notified and their efforts are currently the final step before paving can take place.
We understand the inconvenience this is causing to the community and we are excited to open this up area up with upgraded infrastructure as soon as possible.
Thank you and I appreciate your patience and understanding on that.
In addition, for the better part of this summer, our new and excellent animal control officer has been under attack by groups on social media that have gone even as far as making threats to the officer, those involved in their daily tasks.
I find it necessary to stand up for all employees of the city and specifically our animal control officer who is doing an outstanding job in ensuring that the laws are followed, the job Johnson.
The job gets done, and most importantly, these animals are taken care of.
To everyone making these misinformed and hateful posts, understand that these employees are members of our community who show up to work every day in order to serve the city in their capacity.
We appreciate the community's input, but threats and hateful speech should not be aimed at our workers.
Thank you.
I have nothing new.
Alderman Sanders?
Oh, no.
Alderman Parker?
Sorry.
Alderman Klemm.
My apologies.
Nothing, Madam Mayor.
Alderman Johnson?
Yes, we have a neighborhood watch meeting this Thursday at 630 at 3002 Farmedale Lane and also this Saturday is the block party at Franken State from 1 to 4 and Church in the from 1 to 2.30 on Sunday at Frankenstein.
Alderman Simmons?
No, I don't have anything, thank you.
Alderman Parker?
Yes, the Civilian Police Academy the chief talked about is an excellent program and I highly recommend anybody can take it.
Then the others, we have a neighborhood watch meeting next Monday night.
Thank you.
Alderman Stacey?
Fifth Ward has a neighborhood watch meeting tomorrow.
It's six o'clock at the church on Carroll.
Alderman Shadle.
Nothing tonight.
Public comments.
My name is Cheryl Alton and so Wayne you admitted that you knew Albers didn't have the right states filed out with states but that you allowed them to tear down buildings and also you Darren or Rob should have been out there they did not follow EPA regulations at all I've got pictures of it with dust flying everywhere.
No fences surrounding stuff.
And that's on my property.
Shh!
And I'm sure they didn't follow it anymore because we've got pictures of this.
Also, you tore down my house Wayne.
You think you got a big win.
Now that I found out tonight, you don't.
Also, you took my driveway, my back lot, and my steps.
Why?
That driveway was not part of the Miller.
And Rob, I've been on you for three weeks to get me the paperwork of all this.
And you sit there and Mayor Miller, you don't like it when people come up here and talk about elders.
It irritates you.
It irritates you because, you know, they get things wrong.
And I sure hope they pay for it soon because people are waking up and they've not followed it and thank God that this lady will be able to hopefully keep her job because people voted for that.
And John.
You want to get somebody in there that's crooked just like the rest of the people.
That's why you wanted her out.
Any other public comments?
Hi, Winchester Drive.
I notice that we go for the lowest bid.
I know you look to save the buck because that's what everybody and so on.
That's what everybody does.
They always go for the lowest bid.
And we're a distressed city, and I hate that label, distressed city, Freeport isn't distressed.
So maybe sometimes going for maybe not the lowest bid, maybe the next, maybe looking at everybody's qualifications and saying, yeah, they came with a low bid and they have have all the qualifications we need, but this person really knows the area.
So I'm very happy that it didn't go through.
Also, for the people that are on oxygen when we're talking about this, ComEd or MC Squared, if they're on oxygen with ComEd or if they're on a ventilator Bader, or if they're on any kind of home oxygen equipment or home medical equipment and the power goes out, you are on a list that immediately your area is worked on right away because some of these people, they cannot go.
They have generators, but the generators don't go that long.
So ComEd immediately works on your property so that the oxygen comes back up and the ventilators come back on.
I know this is about disability rights and I know this is about the ADA and maybe that group should have been pulled in, but I don't know, Mr. Mudge, what would happen with MC Squared because everybody, like I started out saying, everybody likes to save a buck.
If MC Squared really does save the dollars, do they also have this list to be able to lift the people that are on oxygen, are on ventilators, are on home medical equipment, Speider, Prime Minister, Melvin Hego.
Thank you.
Our itz Thank you.
Any other public comments?
Sir?
Just for the record, ComEd is sort of a delivery company for all the power.
They control the list and everything, that doesn't go away.
So if the power goes out, ComEd will send a message or whatever to say they're calling to no matter who it's by.
Okay, thank you very much.
Any other public comments?
Councilmen and women and you my constituents.
I take my position seriously and yeah sometimes I too fall short and get upset because right is right and wrong is wrong.
So I stand before you tonight apologizing for my shortcomings.
I'm only human.
For future reference, Director Duckman, I just think it's only right that everybody be in good standing.
That bids on jobs and maybe that's something that can be added to the ordinance or to the process or to the whatever that they have to show that they are in right standing.
I'm not trying to take nobody's life hood away.
Right is right and wrong is wrong and we have to come correct.
We all have to come Correct.
It's not this can work for you and not for me.
We're in this together.
And with that being said I just want to read Isaiah 40 and 8.
The grass withers and the flowers fade but the word of God stands forever.
Father God in the name of Jesus we praise you we thank you for being God all by yourself Lord.
Continue to look down upon us your people, O God.
Continue to lead us and guide us.
Order our steps according to your word, for it's your word that cannot return void.
Give us understanding.
Give her a greater knowledge and understanding of what we need to do for this year's city, for we We stand in victory.
We walk by faith and not by sight.
We thank you for being in control.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
Any other public comments this evening?
I'll entertain a motion for adjournment.
So moved.
Second.
We have a motion made by Shadle.
Second.
Seconded by Alderman Parker.
All those in favor?
Aye.
Have a good evening.